


not until now

by cherryfizzies



Category: Hunter X Hunter
Genre: Lost Time, M/M, Old Men, everyone lives long lives au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-15
Updated: 2017-11-15
Packaged: 2019-02-03 02:21:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,584
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12739056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cherryfizzies/pseuds/cherryfizzies
Summary: “You’re in a mood tonight,” Kurapika said. “It’s making me sad.”Leorio laughed and said, “Probably because I’m sad.”“Because you never got married? Don’t be ridiculous, Leorio.”





	not until now

Leorio watched Kurapika’s mouth as he spoke and was delighted when he popped his sugar spoon into his mouth for a moment before continuing his story. He watched as he carefully positioned the spoon on the edge of plate to avoid leaving tea spot on the kitchen table top. 

_Forty years._

Forty years he’d known Kurapika and for forty years he’d watched him gracefully over-explain information and carefully clean off his teaspoon with his mouth before setting it down. The extreme familiarity in the act made Leorio feel suddenly very emotional, that he had known the man across from him for so long that he could anticipate his actions and habits with terrifying accuracy. 

“Leorio,” Kurapika said, and Leorio knew he’d stopped listening. 

“We’ve known each other for almost our whole lives,” Leorio said in lieu of an apology, and Kurapika sat up straighter in his seat. Silence hung between them at Kurapika’s kitchen table, the evening sun peeking through the blinds making the yellow wallpaper look more yellow and the silver wisps in Kurapika’s braid shine. 

“Since I was fifteen, yes,” Kurapika said, and wow. Leorio looked at his hands, his fifty-seven year old hands, and thought about how different his life would have been if he hadn’t met the angry and impulsive spitfire that laughed like a golden bell and packed a punch like he’d never seen before.

“Hm.” Leorio fussed with his own cup and thought about the time they’d spent in each other’s company and the time they hadn’t. As it stood, today was the first day he’d seen Kurapika in months. 

“Do you remember,” he said with a sour smile, and Kurapika immediately groaned. 

“Listen,” he went on, “do you remember the time you showed up at my house in Swaldani—”

Kurapika interrupted, “Yes, I was bleeding everywhere and you panicked. I was there, Leorio, you don’t have to retell the story.” 

Leorio just smiled to himself and continued, “‘I need a doctor,’ you said, and I realized for the first time that that was me. I was a doctor.” 

“Not any of the many times that you’d helped me before that night,” Kurapika sighed and dropped his hand to the handle of his cup. 

“I had to put thirteen stitches in your stomach that night,” Leorio reached across the table to touch Kurapika’s arm. 

“Twelve stitches,” Kurapika corrected, and placed his hand over Leorio’s. 

Leorio laughed and Kurapika patted the back of his hand. 

“Can I ask you something?” Leorio asked, feeling the air shift to something more serious with his tone. Kurapika pulled his hands back and shrugged. 

“You will whether I agree to it or not,” he huffed. 

“Hmm,” Leorio hummed again, and pushed his mostly empty cup a bit towards the center of the table. “Is the absolutely enormous anonymous donation to my foundation every New Year from you?” 

“No,” Kurapika said, closing his eyes. Leorio sat back and stretched his legs out under the table, his toes bumping into Kurapika’s. 

“You’re not friends with someone for forty years,” Leorio said, “and not aware of when he’s lying.” 

“Don’t look so smug,” Kurapika said. 

“Your eyes aren’t even open.” 

“You’re not friends with someone for forty years and not know when he’s looking like a smug bastard,” Kurapika said, finally looking back up at him. His eyes were a soft maroon and Leorio felt his embarrassment twist up in his chest. 

“You still donate,” Leorio said. 

“Yours is still a foundation I believe to be a good investment.” 

Leorio didn’t have anything to say to that, and Kurapika spoke up again before he had the opportunity to change the subject. “I was hoping you would never ask,” he said honestly. 

“There’s a lot I’ve been meaning to ask you,” Leorio said. “Over the years,” he clarified. 

“Hmm.” Kurapika flipped his braid to his other shoulder and finished his tea. He uncrossed his ankles—Leorio could tell because he felt the shuffle with his foot under the table—and pushed back from the table. He picked up his cup and Leorio’s and brought them to the sink. 

As Leorio watched, it occurred to him that Kurapika had aged, for lack of a better expression, like a fine wine. Perhaps not as well as Leorio himself, something Leorio teased everyone about to no end. He considered his many years of being mistaken for an old man an equivalent exchange for being an old man who was never taken for a day past thirty-five. 

Kurapika still looked very young, and he was beautiful with graying hair and tired eyes. The anger and stress from his long life of underground work and betrayal were well worn into his frame, something that made him feel, to Leorio, like he’d lived one hundred more lifetimes than himself. Leorio’s heart was overwhelmed with love for the man he’d never confessed to in the forty years he’d known him. 

“For instance,” Leorio said, once Kurapika turned the tap off. “I wonder how long we’ve gone without speaking.” 

“That’s not a question for me specifically, though, is it. That’s just something you wonder.” 

“Of course,” Leorio said. “Just something I thought we could figure out together.” 

Kurapika turned and leaned against the counter. Leorio watched himself be watched for a moment before Kurapika said, “Seven years.” 

“Or it’s just something you know.” He hollowly laughed in way that he knew Kurapika knew he didn’t really find it funny.

“I…” Kurapika twisted the many rings on his fingers as he looked for the words to say. Leorio watched and noticed, not for the first time, that his only bare finger was his left ring finger. 

“I know because I have regretted every day that I have not been able to see you,” he said. “The longest we have gone without seeing each other or speaking was seven years. When I was twenty-six. Until I was thirty-three.” 

“That can’t be true,” Leorio said. “Seven years seems like a long time.” 

“Well,” Kurapika said, shuffling his feet. “You called me almost every day for five of those seven years.” 

Leorio didn’t say anything. 

Kurapika said, “I’m sorry I never called you back.” 

Leorio shrugged and smiled. “I’m sorry I called so much.” 

Kurapika’s eye caught something in the window and he turned, and the conversation was over. Leorio watched for a moment, realizing that what Kurapika was watching was the sun setting. He sat still for a moment, making a silent decision before standing to make the short journey to the sink to watch as well.

The crickets outside filled the would-be silence and Leorio wondered if Kurapika could feel him watching his face instead of the sun. 

“Neither of us ever got married,” Leorio said. 

“You say that like we’re old,” Kurapika said. “Like we missed our chance.” 

“Didn’t we?” 

Kurapika didn’t say anything, watching the last sliver of sun slip behind the horizon. 

Leorio stepped away and considered his options. He could tell Kurapika that he loved him, something he was certain Kurapika already knew, but he would have to return to his life after the weekend was over.

He could ask him to marry him, and to return with him. Kurapika wasn’t up to as much since he’d finally found a way to be at peace with his guilt. Since he’d murdered enough people to realize it wasn’t going to help him feel any less angry.

Leorio wondered if he would. He wondered if he could move out here, to Kurapika’s small and quiet cottage. 

“You’re in a mood tonight,” Kurapika said. “It’s making me sad.” 

Leorio laughed and said, “Probably because I’m sad.” 

“Because you never got married? Don’t be ridiculous, Leorio.” 

“It’s not that.” Leorio felt every moment he’d ever spent with Kurapika and every moment he’d ever spent apart from him settle over his heart as he said, “I never got married to _you._ ” 

The first thing Leorio noticed was that Kurapika was crying, and he didn’t like that very much.

The second thing he noticed was that his arms were full now of Kurapika. He brought his thumb to Kurapika's lashes, not quite catching the fat tear drop that fell too quickly.

The third was that Kurapika’s eyes were burning a bright and beautiful shade of red, one that Leorio had never seen before. 

“You think you can just say that?” Kurapika cried. “You think you can...come to my house for dinner and tell me you’re sad you never married me?”

The fourth and final thing Leorio noticed was that he was crying too. 

“No,” Leorio said. “I’m sorry.” 

“Don’t be s—” Kurapika growled in frustration. “I can’t believe you just...after all these years, you just say that!” 

Leorio felt Kurapika step back out of his arms and he felt himself follow him to make up for the lost space. 

“I’m sad about it too, you know,” Kurapika said making a wild gesture with his hands.

Leorio felt his throat get dry and his legs go numb. 

“You think you’re the only one that was in love this whole time, you selfish prick,” Kurapika said in the horrifically condescending way that Leorio knew he was hopelessly in love with. 

“I knew you knew,” Leorio said. 

“I didn’t,” Kurapika said honestly. “Not really. Not until now.” 

“Forty years, Kurapika,” Leorio said. 

“You say that like it’s lost time.” Kurapika crossed his arms and closed his eyes. 

“Of course not,” Leorio said. “Just time.” 

They stood in the kitchen in silence. Leorio wasn’t sure what Kurapika was thinking about, but he was sure that he wanted to kiss him. 

Kurapika finally broke the silence, his bright red eyes looking up at Leorio’s surely dumbfounded expression. “Could we get married, then?” he asked. 

Leorio had just started to wonder where all the air in his lungs went before it was all too quickly replenished with quick sharp bursts of laughter. Before he knew it, he was crying again, and he felt Kurapika’s hand on his shoulder as he doubled over gasping for breath suspended somewhere between laughing and sobbing. 

Leorio felt his ass hit the floor, and Kurapika was laughing now too. They were doubled over on the ugly old-fashioned tile in Kurapika’s kitchen, laughing too hard to breathe and crying too hard to talk and Leorio never felt more in love before in his entire life. 

“Of course,” he finally said through wheezing breaths. “Of course we can get married.” 

Kurapika’s head was on his shoulder, and he put his arm around his shoulders. He wiped his tears,then wiped Kurapika’s. 

“I love you,” Kurapika said. 

“I love you too,” Leorio said. He felt himself smiling dumbly and wondered if he could kiss Kurapika now. 

“No, it’s too much pressure right now,” Kurapika said, and shoved him back. 

“Did I ask out loud?” Leorio said, bewildered. 

“No,” Kurapika laughed and pulled himself up. He put out a hand to help Leorio up as well. “I just know you.” 

“What if you were wrong and just said something ominous like that like a weirdo?” Leorio asked. 

“You were looking at me like this!” Kurapika accused, before flashing Leorio a foolish, lovestruck expression that was probably not too far off the mark of what he had in fact looked like moments ago.

“I did not,” he said. 

Kurapika laughed at him and nodded towards the living room. “Come on,” he said. “I want to show you some books I thought you’d like the last time I was out.” 

Leorio nodded dumbly and followed him through the house. He sat on the couch and listened to Kurapika talk about books and anything else he’d decided to talk about and thought about how he was going to get married. 

When it was appropriate, Leorio excused himself to get his overnight belongings from his car. He dug through his glove compartment while he was there and pocketed a small blue box. 

“Do you really want to get married?” Leorio asked as he found Kurapika in his pajamas on the couch. 

“Do you?” 

“More than anything,” Leorio said. 

“Me too.” 

Leorio could see the intense embarrassment that settled over Kurapika’s entire body, so he plopped himself heavily next to him and sighed. 

“Good,” he said as he opened the little box from his car. “Because I don’t know what I woulda done with this otherwise.” He slid the ring onto Kurapika’s finger before either of them could say anything else. 

Kurapika stared down at it, and flexed his fingers a few times. He made a fist, and then twisted his hand out to look at the ring. Leorio watched as he did so and could feel the grin on his face as his cheeks burned with embarrassment. 

Kurapika stood and went behind the door that Leorio knew was his bedroom. He didn’t return right away, but he wasn’t taking so long that Leorio was worried. 

“My father’s,” Kurapika said upon returning, holding out a small gold band. 

Leorio didn’t move as Kurapika slipped the ring on. 

“My mother’s.” Kurapika pointed to one of the rings on his right hand. The bands were lined with matching blue jewels.

Leorio looked down at his own hand, his fifty-seven year old hand, and smiled. He moved his hand out the same way he’d just watched Kurapika do. 

“Kurapika, I—” 

“I know,” Kurapika said. 

Leorio pulled him into his lap and buried his face into his neck. 

They looked at each other again, pausing for just a moment too long to feel natural. 

“God, just _do it,_ ” Kurapika said with a groan. “It’s going to be weird the first time no matter what.” 

Leorio felt himself freeze up and Kurapika made no move to get closer. 

“How are we gonna kiss at our wedding if you can’t kiss me right now?” Kurapika asked. 

Leorio smiled so wide his face hurt. He bumped his nose to Kurapika’s and felt his breath catch. 

When he finally pressed his lips to his, all of the laughter between them dispersed. He pulled back long enough to tip his head and kiss him again. 

“We’re getting married,” Kurapika said softly. 

“We’re getting married,” Leorio repeated. 

“You just kissed me,” Kurapika said. 

“I just kissed you,” Leorio repeated. 

“ _You just kissed me!_ ” 

“I did!” 

Kurapika looked completely lost in that moment and just as Leorio prepared to ask him what was up, if he was okay, if he was freaked, he felt Kurapika press forward. 

He felt the smile on his own lips as he caught just a bit of Kurapika's teeth.

When they pulled apart, Leorio said, “ _You_ just kissed _me!_ ” 

“I know!” Kurapika excitedly wrapped his arms around Leorio’s neck and kissed him again. And again, and again. 

“You’re my fiancé,” Leorio said, bewildered. 

And again.

“Your tired fiancé.” Kurapika said. 

“Oh, I'm sorry, am I keeping you up?” Leorio asked, amused. “You wanted to go to bed instead of celebrating our engagement?” 

“I think maybe we can celebrate with a book and my bed?” 

Leorio’s entire brain felt like it went numb when he realized he would be sleeping with Kurapika in his bedroom instead of on the couch. 

“I’ll read to you,” he said, and Kurapika smiled.

“Okay.” Kurapika scooped up Leorio’s hand. “Let’s go.” 

“Let’s go,” Leorio repeated. 

“We’re getting married,” Kurapika mumbled to himself and Leorio felt himself tugged across the room. 

“We’re getting married,” Leorio said. He kissed the top of Kurapika’s head and closed the door behind them.


End file.
